Data-driven learning (DDL) is an inductive approach to language learning in which students study examples of authentic language and use them to find patterns of language use. This inductive approach to learning has the advantages of being learner-centered, encouraging hypothesis testing and learner autonomy, and helping develop learning skills.…

This study sought to validate adult-child shared storybook reading as a method for teaching target vocabulary words to preschool children with disabilities. The Vocabulary Learning through Books (VLTB) instructional procedure incorporates, adult-child book reading, questioning during reading requiring the child to answer with a target word, and…

Vocabulary forms a relentless divide between children who succeed and those who do not. This divide is often between poor children and their privileged counterparts. Without vocabulary knowledge, children cannot interpret text meaningfully or respond in ways that enable them to fully participate in classroom discussions. "All About…

Science vocabulary knowledge plays a role in understanding science concepts, and science knowledge is measured in part by correct use of science vocabulary (Lee et al. in "J Res Sci Teach" 32(8):797-816, 1995). Elementary school students have growing vocabularies and many are learning English as a secondary language or depend on schools to learn…

As far as academic reading comprehension is concerned, a network of linguistic skills and strategies operate in a complex and integrated matter. Since it is impossible to examine all the factors affecting reading comprehension all at once, it is more reasonable to compare and contrast the predictive effects of specific variables against each other…

The Comprehension Hypothesis (CH) is the most powerful hypothesis in the field of Second Language Acquisition despite the presence of the rivals the skill-building hypothesis, the output hypothesis, and the interaction hypothesis. The competing hypotheses state that consciously learned linguistic knowledge is a necessary step for the development…

This paper looks at the ways in which vocabulary is taught and in particular what important learning points ESL students should know in order to understand new vocabulary words. It also discusses various ideas of how teachers could teach vocabulary. It highlights the importance of a theory that states there are 3 key stages that students progress…

The typical approach to teaching vocabulary in English/Language Arts programs has been to focus on six to eight words per text. Even though these words may add meaning to a particular story, the target words are often rare and their generalizability is limited. The Vocabulary Megaclusters provides a framework for selecting and teaching words…

Research has demonstrated that second language (L2) vocabulary learning improves when target words are presented in acoustically varied compared with acoustically consistent formats. The present study investigated the extent to which this benefit of acoustic variability is a consequence of difficult encoding demands (cognitive effort hypothesis)…

The purpose of this study is to examine whether learning a known-and-unknown word combination is superior in terms of retention and retrieval of meaning to learning a single unknown word. The term "combination" in this study means a two-word collocation of a familiar word and a word that is new to the participants. Following the results of…

It has previously been demonstrated that enactment (i.e., performing representative gestures during encoding) enhances memory for concrete words, in particular action words. Here, we investigate the impact of enactment on abstract word learning in a foreign language. We further ask if learning novel words with gestures facilitates sentence…

Children as young as two years of age are able to learn novel object labels through overhearing, even when distracted by an attractive toy (Akhtar, 2005). The present studies varied the information provided about novel objects and examined which elements (i.e. novel versus neutral information and labels versus facts) toddlers chose to monitor, and…

The following manuscript is a review of research surrounding best practices for language and literacy development in children birth to age three. Part 1 of the review begins with the research on language acquisition beginning in utero, continuing through infancy and onto the emergence of speech. The review discusses the importance of language…

One of the questions facing language instructors is how direct vocabulary instruction should be. Much recent research into vocabulary acquisition and studies of learning strategies strongly indicates that the explicit vocabulary learning vs. implicit vocabulary learning issue is not a dichotomy, but rather a continuum (Hunt and Belgar, 2005; Lee…

Vocabulary is an essential component of language teaching and learning process, and correct pronunciation of lexical items is an ultimate goal for language instructors in ELT programs. Apart from how lexical items should be taught, the way teachers correct oral vocabulary errors as well as those of pronunciation in line with the preferences of…